How to Turn Time Into Your Greatest Writing Tool

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In high school, weekends were my sacred writing time. I’d save up all of my creative energy to stay locked in the spare bedroom with our Mac sans the internet. No distractions. No getting lost in a sea of YouTube videos. It’s the ultimate intoxication for a writer.

And through an entire eight hours or so, I’d sit in a dining room chair pretending to be a desk chair with the same soft melodramatic music playing in the background to “get me in the mood”. Breaks were few and far between. 

But I savored this time. It’s what I imagined my life as a writer would be. 

However, as I was logging off for the day, I’d scan through my pages to see the final count.

Three.

Eight hours to write three pages. At the time, it felt like that's par for the course. This was just how it was.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Fast forward to working at a food magazine and having consistent content to churn out. There were no endless amounts of time to just stare at your screen. The clock was very real, and it wasn’t stopping. But that’s where some of my best work came from. 

So, if you’ve felt like the reason you’re not getting more on the page is time: You’re right. 

Whether it’s because you have too much or not enough, time is the greatest enemy of every writer.

Here’s how to make it work for you. No matter where you stand.

Schedule Writing Blocks

For most writers, we convince ourselves that the writing muse has to hit us. We can’t sit at our desks and have genius pouring from our fingertips. 

Remember that one morning, when we got up, and it was so quiet and perfect and we wrote 10,000 words? Well, we can’t repeat that. It’s lightning in a bottle.

Twyla Tharp disagrees. As she states in The Creative Habit:

“You don’t get lucky without preparation, and there’s no sense in being prepared if you’re not open to the possibility of a glorious accident.” 

By not keeping a consistent writing schedule, it’ll be harder to use those moments of inspiration to their fullest potential.

If you decide to write at 5am during the week, and 6am on the weekends, put it in your calendar. The amount of time is up to you, but make it an actual appointment you keep with yourself.

Have a more chaotic schedule? You can use Marie Forleo’s productivity hack of scheduling your day the night before.

As she says: If it’s not scheduled, it’s not real.

Set a Timer

Once you have your writing time scheduled, set a timer.

But if I schedule writing time, why would I need a timer?

Have you ever told yourself you’d do something for the next hour, and as soon as you started the task, you’d think of something else you had to do?

Of course, you have.

Even if you tell yourself 5am is your writing time, it won’t be long before you “need” to wash your face or change into your workout clothes. 

There is no urgency to do what you set out to do.

Enter a ticking clock, and it changes.

You have a real deadline now.

And with your timer, you can cut up your writing block any way you want.

Some writers prefer the Pomodoro Method of short bursts of work followed by small breaks, while others want a true uninterrupted hour of focus.

You’re free to use the time however you’d like. If the timer goes off, and you still want to write, set the timer for half of your original block, and see where you are when it goes off.

Chances are you’ll write more than you do without a timer, and if not, it’s okay. You’re writing, which is what you want to be doing anyway.

Track Your Time

Before I lose you on this one, hear me out.

Any time I heard this on a self-improvement podcast, I would shrug my shoulders and tell myself that I could do the exercise without really doing it.

I write things in my calendar! 

I’m pretty good at staying on task! 

And forgive me, but it seems like it would take a lot of time to write down how you’re spending your time?

All of the above can be true and tracking your time can still work for you.

Some people promote keeping a vigilant record of everything you’re doing during the day. If that works for you, lovely!

But for the purposes of this exercise, start with just tracking your actual writing time. I prefer Toggl for its ease of use, color-coded project options, and the ability to utilize both the desktop and app versions, so you can track time no matter where you are. 

Some of my different projects include:

• Blog Writing

• Research & Inspiration

• Business Development

So, as I’m writing this post, it falls under the project of Blog Writing with the description being the name of the blog. 

This way, I can see not only how much time I spent on Blog Writing in general, but also how much time I spent on individual posts.

Maybe, your projects would include:

• Research

• Planning & Outlining

• Writing

It’s tempting to believe the creative process can’t be quantified, but it’s possible that seeing concrete data on how much we’re creating can help us create more.

Make Time Your Best Friend

Whether it’s an hour or 20 minutes, make the time you have to write your time. Treat it with respect and know that your schedule is yours. 

Some seasons are busier than others, but if writing consistently is the goal, you can take back time to make it work for you.

By scheduling blocks, setting a timer and tracking your time, you’ll not only feel more empowered, but you’ll be able to see genuine progress instead of remembering the one day you wrote 10,000 words.